


dream a little bigger

by NoPitSoDeep



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Happy Ending, Limbo, M/M, eames angst, emotionally constipated dream boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-01 16:13:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4026436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoPitSoDeep/pseuds/NoPitSoDeep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eames says “Don’t make me leave you here.” and Arthur says “Don’t be a wuss.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	dream a little bigger

Eames says “Don’t make me leave you here.” and Arthur says “Don’t be a wuss.” 

 

There is no kiss goodbye. There is no last sweet touch on the shoulder. There is not the soft brush of Eames’ fingers across Arthur’s cheek. 

 

There is only Arthur’s snarking, lopsided smirk, and the sinking feeling in Eames’ stomach that this will be his last chance to see it. 

 

—

 

Eames screams Arthur’s name until long after every level is done, and every dream is gone, cradles the body that was once bloody and broken to his chest, and sobs into Arthur’s perfect hair as though that’s going to bring him back. 

 

It’s not. 

 

—

 

_Arthur is sitting in a creaking rocking chair, overlooking the sea, on the porch of a house that looks suspiciously like the bungalow they stayed in in Honduras._

 

_His hair is gray, and thinning, and the spots on the back of his hands fit exquisitely into the aged wrinkles that have formed, there. He’s perfect._

 

_Eames moves slowly, and crouches down in front of him, reaching out to rest his hands on top of Arthur’s on the arms of the chair. The sun is setting, or doing whatever it does to mimic it, here, and it illuminates his face in a soft, orange light._

 

_Even in his old age, Arthur is beautiful._

 

_“It’s time to go home, darling.” Eames says, and Arthur looks at him the way Eames’ nan used to, as though she were trying to remember something she’d long since forgotten._

 

_“I used to know a boy who looked just like you.” He says, and his voice is rough, like sandpaper. “But you can’t be him.”_

 

_Eames says; “Why not, love?” and Arthur smiles, sadly._

 

_“That boy wouldn’t have come back for me.”_

 

_Eames curls his fingers around Arthur’s, and leans up, pressing a soft kiss to his aged cheek._

 

_“I keep telling you, darling, I’m full of surprises."_

 

 

_—_

 

“You’re going to send me back.” 

 

"We can’t.” 

 

“You can.” Dom’s face says ‘can but won’t’, and Ariadne’s says ‘shouldn’t but will’ and Yusuf just looks a little confused and somewhat sad, and really, Eames couldn’t care less what any of them feel. “You can, and you will."

 

“It’s not safe.” Ariadne says, while Dom nods in agreement, and Eames resists the urge to cross his arms bitchily over his chest. 

 

“You think I care.” He replies, instead, and shakes his head, minutely. “I don’t.” 

 

There’s a hard crease between Dom’s eyebrows, and his mouth is pressed into a tight line. 

 

“You should.” He mutters, and Eames relaxes back into his seat, and crosses his legs in front of him, the picture of sophisticated leisure. This is what he is supposed to be. This is what they expect from him. This is what will convince them to do what he wants. 

 

“Look, either you’re going to help me, or I’m going to find much less reliable individuals to do the job.” He shrugs, every bit of focus centered in on nonchalance, and laces his fingers over his stomach. “So make up your minds, because I haven’t got all day.” He doesn’t. 

 

The clock is ticking, Arthur’s still down there, and every minute he spends asleep in that chair is another bit of himself that won’t be there when he wakes up.

 

If he wakes up. 

 

The silence is long, and stagnant, and when Dom finally breaks it, his voice is strained, but resolute. 

 

“Fine.” 

 

Eames breathes for the first time in fourteen hours. 

 

—

 

They are fighting. They are fucking. They are happy, and not happy, and Eames wishes Arthur would listen when he says he loves him, whispered into the space between their mouths and the curve of Arthur’s shoulder blade. 

 

He doesn’t. 

 

“Will you stop saying that?” 

 

“Sorry, love.” Eames rests his cheek against the small of Arthur’s back, and closes his eyes. “Can’t.”  Arthur groans into his pillow. 

 

“It’s disingenuous, Eames.” He mumbles, but his arm twists back and his hand slides up into Eames’ hair, carding through it with gentle fingers. 

 

“Keep telling yourself that, darling.” Eames murmurs, but there’s a pang in his chest, a question that he can’t find the answer to. 

 

Does Arthur mean it?

 

—

 

 

_“Arthur.” The fingers laced in his are trembling, slightly, brittle, and thin, and as Eames presses his lips to the aged knuckles, he feels a pang of something like jealousy that he wasn’t there to watch them become this way. “Do you remember ever loving me?”_

 

_Arthur smiles, a little sadly, and nods._

 

_“Always.” He croaks, and squeezes Eames’ hand, just a touch. “Had to pretend, back then. But I always did.”_

 

_The train track is cold under Eames’ temple, and Arthur’s forehead is warm where it rests against his._

 

_“Don’t forget that, when we wake up, yeah?” Eames smooths his free palm up Arthur’s side, and closes his eyes. “I don’t want to pretend, anymore.”_

 

_Arthur smiles, again._

 

_“Of course, boy. Of course.”_

 

_—_

 

Eames says “Don’t make me leave you here.” and Arthur’s smile is all cocky self-assuredness, and untapped potential. It’s inspiring, and terrifying, and Eames loves him.

 

“Don’t be a wuss.” There’s too much space between them, and it makes Eames’ chest hurt, but when he reaches out, Arthur moves away. “No, don’t. It’s not goodbye.” His grin is blinding. “It’s see you later.” 

 

Eames grits his teeth, and Arthur nods, eyes wide, and sure. 

 

“It’s okay, Eames. It’ll be okay.” 

 

Twenty minutes later, Eames wakes up, and it is not okay. 

 

—

 

Arthur is laughing. 

 

Arthur is laughing like sunshine and warm summer days and Eames’ nan’s fresh baked scones, and he has never been this in love before in his life. 

 

“I’m serious, I swear, the man had me looking like a regular Luke Skywalker.” Arthur presses his face into the crook of Eames’ neck while his shoulders shake with giggles, and Eames turns to touch his nose to Arthur’s temple. 

 

“I wish—I wish we c-could take pictures.” Arthur chokes out, and Eames grins. 

 

“Well, someday I’ll just have to do the outfit for myself, darling.” Arthur kisses him, warm, and sweet, with little residual chuckles echoing between them, and Eames wonders if this is what being whole feels like. 

 

—

 

_“Are you ready, love?” Eames asks, and Arthur nods, slowly, fingertips tracing nonsense patterns over Eames’ cheeks._

 

_“I’ve been ready for a while, I think.”  He closes his eyes, and his nose brushes Eames’. “You’re waiting for a train.” Eames feels the train track start to rattle._

 

_“A train that’ll take you far away.” He whispers back, and hears the rasp of that laugh in Arthur’s voice as the ground begins to shake._

 

_“You know where you hope this train will take you.” He squeezes Eames’ hands, and Eames squeezes back. The not-so-distant sound of engines begins to get closer._

 

_“But you can’t know for sure.” The sound is almost deafening, now, filling Eames’ ears and shaking him to his core, but Arthur’s voice pierces through._

 

_“But it doesn’t matter.” Arthur’s eyes snap open, suddenly as bright, and as alive as they’ve ever been, fixed on Eames the way they were back up there, and Eames’ heart skips a beat. “Because you’ll be together.”_

 

_Brown, and a smile, and the train, and then nothing._

 

_Nothing._

 

_—_

 

“Arthur.” Eames sobs, _sobs_ , like there’s something broken, deep inside him, and there _is._ “Arthur, wake up. Wake up, now, wake up.” 

 

Arthur is limp, and broken, blood dripping from his broken nose, and the gash in his forehead, and the bullets that riddle his chest, and Eames cradles him up against his chest and buries his face in the crook of his neck, and sobs. 

 

He hasn’t cried since his nan died, when he was fourteen, but here, with Arthur’s body in his arms, and the world ending around him, there is nothing left to stop the tears. 

 

“Sweetheart, it’s time.” He whispers into Arthur’s hair, kisses his forehead like he didn’t do all those other times, and Arthur doesn’t move. “It’s time, it’s time to wake up, you have to wake up, now.” 

 

“Eames, we have to go.”

 

“You have to wake up.”

 

“ _Eames_.”

 

“ ** _Wake up_**. _”_

 

_—_

 

His eyes snap open, and the first thing he sees is Arthur’s, staring at him from the lawn chair beside his. 

 

He doesn’t move, doesn’t dare, doesn’t break the silence and the stillness as everyone watches them, waiting for the shoe to drop, for Arthur to scream, and roll out of his seat. For Arthur to run from Eames like he’d run from any stranger he woke up next to. For it all to end, then, and there. 

 

It never comes. 

 

Instead, Arthur’s fingertips press against Eames’ cheek, and his smile is small, and soft. 

 

“You found me.” Eames can’t help but smile back. 

 

“Of course I found you.” He whispers, and leans forward, bumping their foreheads together. “I love you.” 

 

Arthur kisses him. 

 

“I love you, too.” 


End file.
